


Home Is...

by dharmavati, sporkyadrasteia (dharmavati)



Category: Pirates of the Caribbean
Genre: 100-1000 Words, Character Study, Character of Color, Community: 64damn_prompts, F/M, It Made Sense In My Head, Reverse Chronology, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-04-04
Updated: 2007-04-04
Packaged: 2017-10-03 17:02:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dharmavati/pseuds/dharmavati, https://archiveofourown.org/users/dharmavati/pseuds/sporkyadrasteia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sailors--pirates no less--may be a superstitious lot, but, this time, she leaves the tarot cards in her home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Home Is...

**Author's Note:**

> This was written after "Dead Man's Chest" and before "At World's End", but it ended up not being too Jossed by the latter movie so most of the details should still be supported by canon.
> 
> For the 64damn_prompts community: #56 the beginning is the end is the beginning

This is a place of emptiness; a shell.

Tia Dalma closes the door and brings out the lock, hoping the house doesn't capsize before her return (_oh, she's coming back from this, alright_—she knows that much). She trusts the sea only so much.

The anxious young girl, Elizabeth, stares. "Why do you need to lock your door?"

Tia glances and mutters off-hand, "Keep the Bogeyman from my place, chile."

The girl opens her mouth, and then closes it before saying anything, her face constantly flickering between disbelief and trust. The girl does not know what to be certain of (not even of death, not anymore) save for some terrible, terrible guilt.

Tia Dalma has nothing to say to her, has no answers for people who do not wish to accept them.

"Well," she asks Captain Barbossa, "are we to be goin' or no?"

Barbossa answers something in the affirmative, but Tia does not really listen as she steps into the boat, leaving her home and shelter for the first time in oh so many years.

Master Gibbs makes an off-hand comment about the presence of _more_ women on board but Tia reminds him that it is not necessary.

Sailors--pirates no less--may be a superstitious lot, but, this time, she leaves the tarot cards in her home.

\---------------------------------------------

This is a place of sorrow. Of bitterness and gloom.

Tia bites back her words for these children, who have come to her for solace. They wear different faces (confusion, denial, betrayal, guilt) but all are masked by the sadness, are overcome by it.

She lights candles in memorial, not for Jack Sparrow's sake but theirs, to nurse back their wounded cause with light and soothing drink. She thrusts the mugs into their hands and bids them to sit down, to collapse so that they won't shatter from the pain.

Tia still searches their faces for at least that glimmer that she can trust to fuel the mission, of at least that sliver of hope that allows a man (or woman) to endure the harshest wind (_and these the faces of Jack Sparrow's crew?_ she muses to herself after seeing the crestfallen expression of Master Gibbs, _Surely it is a huge joke…_).

To be a pirate, she decides, perusing the face of young William Turner, is to be all-too-familiar with that dark, dark abyss. You either tease the darkness and fear or are seduced by it.

Tia decides that she'd rather take the chance anyway and offers them a flight from this needless misery.

\---------------------------------------------

This is a place of mystery, of intrigue.

The sailors whisper her name among the docks and bars and then shrink their tongues, as if her spirit could swoop in at any time and cut them off.

From her old wooden chair, Tia Dalma chuckles at the stories and at the scared faces that greet her every time.

Save for one, of course: that damned Jack Sparrow.

Jack is not one to trust the stories until he had seen so for himself… and now that he has, he is amused, enamored even.

_Tia darling,_ he begs of her, not a flicker of fear in his eyes, _I do have need of your assistance in this…_

Tia laughs and grants him his desires, for he knows what he wants and certainly a compass will be of use to him.

But, even more so, she is fascinated by this man who can approach her without flinching, who swallows her words and warnings without gulping in dread.

Tia Dalma is no fool—she knows what the great Captain Jack Sparrow truly fears and for _that_ she can give no relief, no haven (something in her heart twinges as she thinks this but she knows that this is how her world has become—there is no going back to how it once was).

But.

Pirate or not, Jack Sparrow is a good man, and, in turn, deserves at least _something_ to help him survive this.

And Tia Dalma knows he'll need all the help he can get to escape.

\---------------------------------------------

This was a place of love, a long long time ago.

It was the same way on the outside, though, hardly the stuff of legend as the high-tide waters sloshed against the floor of the hut.

He would often say that the old house was so rickety that it could break apart and drop them into the swampy waters at anytime. She would then take his insult as a challenge and argue to no end about the virtues of her home.

And they would argue and laugh until late into the night, naked in the dim candlelight. She would smile into his chest and forget all those nagging thoughts, forget what her cards and crab claws tell her whenever she unwittingly glances at them.

_'Tis not fair to mix love with destiny_, she would muse, ear pressed against his beating heart, _'tis not fair for the both of us_.

In the morning, he wakes and dresses himself and, pausing before the door, asks her of the same request as every other time. She shakes her head once again, not only because she is needed here nor because the claws scream for her to not leave her swamp.

The truth is, she does not want to bear witness to the transformation of this man of gods (or god of men?) when he chooses to become a monster.

And, so, she lets him leave, lets the hum of the swamp-forest accompany him back to the tempting sea.


End file.
